


The Moment Between the Striking and the Fire

by prettyasadiagram



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-19
Updated: 2012-10-19
Packaged: 2017-11-16 15:25:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/540963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettyasadiagram/pseuds/prettyasadiagram
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he gets home, the house is dark and silent, and there’s a message on the machine telling him that Stiles missed one or more classes today, for the second time this week.</p><p>John can’t even muster up the energy to be angry. All he has left is disappointment and sadness and the memory of his wife kissing his temple, whispering, “He is what he is, John, and he’s ours.”</p><p>But lately Stiles doesn't feel like his, and the more he tries to bring him back, the further he slips away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Moment Between the Striking and the Fire

**Author's Note:**

> For this story, the Sheriff's name is John, because I'm painfully unoriginal, and Mama Stilinksi's name was Yara. 
> 
> You all can thank thatdamneddame for telling me not kill off Stiles.
> 
> Title comes from the song "Jungle Drum" by Emiliana Torrini.
> 
> Please do not repost this work in its entirety or share this work on third-party websites such as Goodreads.

John comes home to an empty house and he isn't surprised. Stiles is gone more often than not most nights, and John’s given up trying to pin him down, to figure out what’s going on that he’s become so secretive. 

He thinks of the Stiles before—from before whatever that happened that made him change, the one who would tell him about Harris being a dick, or how Coach said maybe, maybe, Stiles will get to play in the next game. Now he gets told by other deputies that his son was at another crime scene; he gets calls about restraining orders, disturbing the peace, one incident after another. 

So no. He’s not surprised that Stiles’s jeep isn't in the drive. He’s not shocked that it’s 10 PM on a Thursday and his son hasn’t come home yet. Because this is his new normal. 

 

He catches Stiles the next morning, looking wan and vacant, says, “ Didn't hear you come in last night. Do we need to have another talk about curfew?”

Stiles freezes, mouth full of cereal, before mumbling, “Sorry, late night studying with Scott, you know how he is.”

Lie. 

Stiles thinks he doesn’t have a tell, but he does, and John thinks back to last week, when Stiles came home with mud on his face and what looked like confusion and fear when asked about it. He wonders if his son knows what he’s doing. 

 

There’s a moment when he and Stiles are working together to figure out the killings and they smile at each other, and he thinks that even if something about this whole case still doesn’t make sense for him, if he and Stiles can still work like this, things will be ok eventually. They have to be.

 

It’s hasn’t gotten any easier, coming to the station every day and seeing where Alicia used to burn coffee in the morning, where Tony used to sit and make crappy jokes, where Paul would do surprisingly good impressions. 

He still doesn’t know what happened that night. Oh, he knows the official story, that Matt Daehler somehow murdered his deputies, got the jump on six of his best, used a paralytic to keep the odds in his favor. That doesn’t explain the claw marks on his men or the strange tension in Stiles’s face when he gives his statement, or why Melissa is full of fear even when everything is over. 

He knows Melissa knows something now, knows the truth. It’s the way she’s holding herself a little tighter at the game, with something like fear in the set of her shoulders, the line of her mouth. It’s in the way he watches her shrink away from Scott before she sees him watching. He asks her later, when the cheers of the crowd can hide their conversation, but she just shakes her head, says she doesn’t know anything.

And when someone slaps him on the back, congratulates him, it breaks whatever moment there could have been. When he turns back to the game, the team is huddled around Stiles, cheering. And then, it doesn’t matter anymore, because his son just scored.

 

When Stiles is missing from the field, John can’t focus on the fact that Jackson is bleeding, potentially dead. John can’t do much more than yell at people to get back, to give Melissa some room, and so when he realizes that he can’t hear Stiles’ nervous chatter, that Stiles isn’t pushing his way to the middle of the crowd to see what’s going on, there’s nothing to distract from the crippling sense of terror he experiences. There’s no way Stiles wouldn’t be here, hovering over John’s shoulder at a crime scene, if he had a choice. 

And John does everything he can, talks to the other players, yells at Scott, gets in Finstock’s face, puts out an APB, but come midnight there’s nothing, no sign of his son anywhere. 

Standing in Stiles’s room, looking at the clutter and seeing the boy who used to wait by the door for him to come home, yelling “DADDY,” like he was a constant surprise, John knows that he will go to unspeakable lengths if his son is hurt. 

 

Stiles tells him to let it go, repeats “I’m okay” until John wants to beg him to stop, because each repetition is another reminder that Stiles was taken on John’s watch. 

But his son’s voice is full of worry and exhaustion, so John buys his story and lets it go, at least for now.

 

In his office at the station, John tries to piece the clues together. He knows there’s something he’s missing, something buried in the evidence that he keeps overlooking; there has to be. 

He thinks it all began last fall, when the animal attacks started and Laura Hale’s body was found. He thinks it all centers around Derek, and somehow, Stiles. He thinks he has no idea what’s going on, but he has to try, has to find some explanation that makes clear why his house feels empty and his heart feels heavy.

He makes a timeline, a flow chart, a freaking Venn diagram, and he comes up empty, his hands spread on the desk in defeat, as he looks it all over one more time.

And then he packs it all away. Painstakingly, deliberately. He can’t do this at home, not when he knows Stiles would go through his files if he thinks there’s something John is hiding. 

When he gets home, the house is dark and silent, and there’s a message on the machine telling him that Stiles missed one or more classes today, for the second time this week.

John can’t even muster up the energy to be angry. All he has left is disappointment and sadness and the memory of his wife kissing his temple, whispering, “He is what he is, John, and he’s ours.”

But lately Stiles doesn’t feel like his, and the more he tries to bring him back, the further he slips away.

 

When Stiles finally comes home, John asks him where he was if he wasn’t in school.

Stiles looks baffled, “What are you—?”

“Cut the crap, Stiles. The school called. Damn it, we’ve talked about this.” And John’s been watching his kid lie to him for a while now, but the confusion on his face is real this time, real and startling, and not for the first time does John wonder if Stiles even knows what’s going on, or if he’s just been swept up in the current, dragged along for the ride.

 

There’s a pile of paperwork on his desk that seems to have grown overnight, and John slumps in his chair, tired just looking at it.

Charlie knocks on his door, “You got a minute? Something you ought to see.”

When John nods, Charlie comes in and shuts the door behind him. “Call came in last night about a disturbance over on the far side of the Preserve. Stiles’s jeep was spotted.” He pauses, “You know what’s going on with your kid, John?”

John scrubs a hand over his hair, “Goddammit, Stiles,” he says softly. “Does anyone else know about this?”

Charles slowly shakes his head, “The call was routed to me. I kept it quiet.”

“OK. Good. Was there anything concerning at the scene? Blood or property damage, anything?”

“No, just some weird noises, strange marks on some trees, but nothing to indicate a serious crime.”

“Thank God.” John sighs, “Charlie, I hate to ask, but—“

“I can give you twenty-four hours before I file it, sir. That’s all I’m willing to do.” 

“Thanks, Charlie. That’s all I need.”

 

Stiles isn’t home when John gets off work, but in theory the kid should be in school, so maybe that’s a good thing. He pours himself a drink and settles in to wait for his son. 

He’s sitting in the kitchen, head in his hands, when Stiles bursts in the front door and dashes for the stairs. 

“Stiles, we need to talk.”

Stiles pulls up short, “Now? Dad, is everything ok?” 

John doesn’t look up from his hands, “What were you doing in the Preserve last night?” 

“Dad, now is really not a good time, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go, we can talk later? I swear it’s not what you think.”

And then John breaks. He hears himself yelling, asking when would be a good time, accusing Stiles of being in over his head, breaking the law, and he hears these words and these accusations and he just can’t help himself, can’t stem the flow of words that has been building for the last six months, even if Stiles looks like John just physically hit him.

When Stiles still says he has to go, stumbling mid-sentence, John deflates, tired from trying so hard, and turns his back on his son, says, “Then go. Just get out.”

There’s a choked noise behind him, but he doesn’t turn around. By the time what he realizes what he said, how it sounded, Stiles is already gone. 

 

John doesn’t go in Stiles’s room. If he goes in there and finds that Stiles’s clothes are gone, the picture of his mom missing from the nightstand, he doesn’t know what he’ll do. He’d rather maintain the illusion just a little longer.

So he waits. He waits as long as he can. Waits until the silence in the house feels heavy and judgmental, and then he says “He’s not coming back” out loud, just to see how it sound, how much it hurts to know that he might have driven his son away. 

It’s just past ten and the street is quiet and the house is quiet and John gives in. He has to know. 

But nothing is taken; nothing looks out of place. Stiles’s laptop is still on his desk, half buried in paper; the tattered picture of Yara is still by the bed, and John picks it up, like holding his dead wife close will give him the strength to find his son and make things right. 

 

Eventually, John does what he does best: he investigates. Treats his son’s room like a crime scene and takes it apart. He knows his son, he tells himself, Stiles wouldn’t have left like that if he didn’t absolutely have to, no matter how bad things between them were. So something in here has to pull all the pieces together, make everything make sense. 

He tries the laptop, but Stiles is smart enough to password protect everything and John can’t even get past the login page. 

He flips through the papers on the desk, and in the shuffle of chem. labs and econ write-ups, John finds a page in Latin and written at the top, in big bold letters, is, ASK DEREK. Some phrases are circled with question marks by them; and then in the margins, underlined several times, IRON.

John wonders if Stiles ever got around to asking Derek, and then he thinks of the iron toolset by the fireplace.

 

He finds Stiles’s jeep on the outskirts of the Preserve and hears low murmuring from within the forest. 

There’s some sort of glow when he gets closer, and then he sees Stiles, standing in the center of a circle of people. There’s chanting and something shimmering in the air and John thinks about his gun, thinks about the number of underlines under the word IRON on that piece of paper, and decides to trust his son more than his training. 

He steps into the clearing and the blank look on Stiles’s face makes John chance a swing with the poker at the nearest figure. The resulting screams and burned flesh are a bit of a surprise, but he just moves on, trying to yank Stiles out of the circle and hoping for the best. 

Only of course, things don’t go that way. Turns out whatever these things are, they have claws, and a iron poker can only do so much damage when it’s six against one, and John is trying to hold his own when he hears a choked off, “Dad?” and he’s never been so happy to hear his kid’s voice, even if it’s just this one last time.

When John hears a deep growl coming from behind him, he’s not expecting to turn and see a black shape ripping through the other figures, red eyes gleaming in the light. And he’s not expecting Stiles to turn his back on them both and close his eyes, muttering under his breath until the light is blinding and there’s heat and then something explodes and everything is quiet.

 

John picks himself up and the stunned silence in the clearing is a relief, until he realizes that Stiles isn’t talking, isn’t hollering in victory, but is on the ground, hand outstretched and not breathing. He takes a step and says brokenly, “Stiles?” But then Derek is there, doing CPR and yelling at Stiles to breath, damn it, like in every crappy lifetime movie Yara made him watch while she was sick, and when this scene came on they’d both get quiet and not look at each other, just held each other’s hand tightly and breathed through the pain. 

But Stiles isn’t breathing. And Stiles isn’t moving. And Derek is slowly stopping and John just—can’t, anymore. He just can’t.

And when Stiles gasps and sputters and coughs his way back to life, John can only fall to his knees and breathe in time with his son.

 

After the hospital, where Melissa takes one look at John’s face and doesn’t ask any questions, just ushers Stiles off for an X-ray, and a stop at the diner for curly fries—tonight being a special occasion, says Stiles, just this once—Stiles tells John what happened. Granted, he does so in between lackluster complaints about broken ribs and Derek’s half-hearted growls, but he doesn’t stop talking and he doesn’t hedge his way around anything. 

He says, long story short, that Scott is a werewolf and Derek is a werewolf and he stepped in a fairy ring on some werewolf-spurred forest adventure, and he didn’t think anything of it because he walked out OK. Only lately, Stiles says, he’s been losing time, waking up sore like he’s been walking for hours, and it turns out that just because you step out of a fairy ring, doesn’t mean you’re safe. Fairies don’t forget; don’t forgive a trespass without taking their due. And Stiles’ payment was that they were using him to try to get back home.

John still doesn’t understand, doesn’t know when werewolves became a thing that existed outside of _Twilight_ , and who knew that magic was less _Harry Potter_ and more _The Craft_ , and he wishes Yara were here, because she’d know what to say, how to make sense of all of this. 

But John has never given up in the face of the unknown, has always been the first through the door, and he won’t bury his head in the sand now, so he pours himself a drink, and then pours one for Derek, ignoring Stiles’s squawk of outrage.

When he turns to Stiles and looks him in the eye, for the first time in a long time, John feels like he’s actually _seeing_ his son. 

When he says, “The long story this time?” and Stiles starts talking, John believes every word and it feels like relief.


End file.
